Aubrey, the title character of Gerry Andersen s most successful novel, Dream Girl, is so captivating that Gerry s readers insist she s real. Gerry knows she exists only in his imagination. So how can Aubrey be calling Gerry, bed-bound since a freak fall? A virtual prisoner in his penthouse, Gerry is dependent on two women he barely knows: his incurious young assistant, and a dull, slow-witted night nurse. Could the cryptic caller be one of his three ex-wives playing a vindictive trick after all these years? Or is she Margot, an ex-girlfriend who keeps trying to insinuate her way back into Gerry s life? And why does no one believe that the call even happened? Isolated from the world, drowsy from medication, Gerry slips between reality and dreamlike memories: his faithless father, his devoted mother; the women who loved him, the women he loved. Now here is Aubrey, threatening to visit him, suggesting that Gerry owes her something. Is the threat real or a sign of dementia? Which scenario would he prefer? Gerry has never been so alone, so confused and so terrified. And then he wakes up to another nightmare a woman s dead body next to his bed and the terrifying uncertainty of whether he is responsible.
